THINGS THAT SCHOOL WILL NEVER TEACH YOU

It is the 21st century and school is compulsory to each and every kid. Even primary education has already been made free for every kid. Plans to make high school free are also under way. Damn, the government is on its own mission of kicking illiteracy out of Kenya just like it did with polio years ago. Now the only thing remaining is for the government to start printing huge banners and placing them on electricity poles with huge letters saying KICK ILLITERACY OUT OF KENYA.

I love education. What I have never had passion for is school.

Yes, I was always what a teacher would call a fuck up when it came to matters pertaining school.

If you ask my nursery school teacher and she agreed to breach the teacher – student agreement that I have recorded on my constitution that says this: “thou shall not tell other people how I behaved in nursery school” then she would tell you how many times she plotted to “kill” me. Note, the word kill is in quotes. This is to tell you that my teacher is not a murderous psycho.

I remember she would give me some papers with the letters of the alphabet recorded on it and tell me to arrange them. These I would throw out through the window and every time she tried to pinch me I would bite her.

Oh! Lord, aren’t you a forgiving God? Please forgive me for all the sins and trespasses that I did unto that teacher.

When I graduated to go to primary school, the story never changed. I was beaten up by teachers until my ass got used to it. A teacher would beat me twenty strokes of the cane and I would just leave the room smiling like nothing had happened.

By God’s grace I managed to get a grade good enough and managed to go to college. Yes, going to college, I was following what everyone said worked. Go to college and get a good job! That is what people back home always told me.

Now I have been facing life alone and I have learned a lot since then.

Most of the things that I have found useful in life are never taught in school. I don’t know why. Maybe the people who created the curriculums that we follow were somehow stupid. I am not claiming anything.

But, here are the lessons that I have learned:

1. SCHOOL EDUCATION IS NOT EQUAL TO SUCCESS

Note, I said school education.

This is hard to believe.

I know since the day that we were old enough to read six words in a sentence at the same time, the first thing that we were told is that education is the key to success.

First of all, fuck that!

Second, folks who told us this never cared to elaborate what kind of education they were talking about.

We grew up thinking that being taught that river Nile originates from Lake Victoria and that God created the world in six days and then rested on the seventh day would amount to us being successful and driving range rovers around town.

But this is all wrong.

Knowing that what we use to chew food is called mouth and where it goes after we swallow it does not equal shit in the real world.

You could know all the elements on the periodical table and then a person who never even went past primary school could whoop your ass in term of the success they are achieving in the real world after going through life and learning from life.

If we are talking about success in real life, then believe me or not, school education is not shit in front of what the real world teaches you.

Furthermore, success has a lot of other contributing factors.

Success is more often than not a product of self-application, that is self-development, self-control, integrity, communication skills, relationships, a learners heart and boat loads of uncontainable passion.

2. IF YOU FOLLOW EDUCATION YOU WILL START YOUR ADULT LIFE WITH DEBT

I want to cry right now as I write this. I am in debt with the government.

Yes, if you are wondering, it is the fucking student loans. The fucking helb loans.

I had to take these in order to survive through college.

Most young people who go through college don’t have loaded parents. You know what this means? It means that they have to find ways to survive in college.

One way that is there is taking out student loans.

People are supposed to build their lives in their twenties. But what happens more often than not, these youths are spending their lives trying to dig themselves out of the holes that they dug themselves into by owing papa government money through taking out debts.

Ask any youth around.

Then, there is the other painful truth that I know those people in college don’t wanna hear.

This is the truth: school education does not guarantee you a job.

Nowadays CEOs are hiring using a different criterion. It is not in the 90s anymore when the only thing that you needed was a college degree. They are highly using these three variables nowadays:

Experience: Companies do not have time and money to train newbies and still pay them. You have to know what you are expected to do. (This is a call to action to all of you in college to start taking up unpaid internships)

Portfolio: Do you have any proof that you can actually deliver the results that you are claiming that you can achieve? Do you have any endorsements or referees who can attest to the fact that you can deliver results? If no, you know where the door is. Poof! No job.

Personal: Do you fit the culture which is found in the company. Are you approachable, responsible, punctual and have integrity?

Most of those people you see in college will finish their education and then go back home jobless and start eating from their mothers Kitchen.

What a shame guys, I can’t even imagine me being in my mid-twenties and yet waiting for mommy to cook so that I can eat.

This is not the bad thing. Remember these kids still owe papa government the money they were loaned so that they could get educated. Now, this graduate is working as a manual laborer in the village ad he is also supposed to pay hundreds of thousands.

This is not life people…

3. FAILURE IS NOT THE OPPOSITE OF SUCCESS, IT IS PART OF SUCCESS

I remember the feeling.

In primary school, we had this teacher. I can never forget him.

He would just come to class unannounced and give a random test that contained twenty questions.

You had to get all these questions right or otherwise you would get a stroke of the cane for each one of the questions that you failed.

This built a mentality in all of us that failing is not something that is allowed in life.

The mentality that is being created in our kids throughout their 20+ years in school is that failure something real bad. Something that is worth being punished for.

In college I have this lecturer that I hate who profiles us according to how we perform in his exams. More often than not he will make bad comments about those students who didn’t pass.

Fuck you sir! And I hope you read this.

This kind of shit being taught and fixed in student’s mind is something that needs to be erased completely for in real life there is nothing that you can achieve without failing at first.

Failing is a part of life.

But people after being in school for the whole of their lives lack this knowledge. This makes them avoid any situation that involves risk because they might fail and failing according to what has been hammered into their heads is just wrong.

Look around, why do you think these highly educated people are being outdone by guys who never went past high school in their education?

I have the answer.

These guys who never went past high school have the much-needed balls that allows them to realize that failure is a part of success. That is why they take risks and prosper. They fail and instead of going back home and crying to their mama, they learn from their failed venture and move on.

School may never try and tell you that failure is a part of life, a part that cannot be avoided, a part that must be there if you wish to succeed, but you are lucky enough that I am here to tell you.

4. HOW TO HANDLE MONEY

Money runs the world. And if anyone wants to have enough of it, he or she must learn how to handle it.

I pity most college kids.

These kids apply for money that they receive as loans and immediately the money arrives in their bank accounts it is over within a week.

I know life is too short and you should enjoy the hell out of it, but who the fuck squanders money only to result to borrowing from family, relatives and even friends.

How to handle money is a very important skill that people need to be taught, but, it is not taught in school.

But who shall I blame, I will blame no one, I will just tell you that you need to learn this on your own, otherwise, you will remain poor the whole of your life.

5. THINKING

Yes, it is not a typo.

School does not teach you how to think.

You are just taught to be a robot.

A robot is a computer and you know what is the deal with computers.

Garbage in, Garbage out!

Kids in school are taught 1 + 1 = 2

At no point in life that you are going to ever think that 1+ 1= 11.

No!

Never!

Every time you are asked what 1 + 1 is equivalent to, you have to write 2 without even thinking.

You are taught in history that soldiers died in a battle in Somalia.

Then you are asked a question: In which battle did the soldiers die?

You are supposed to quickly write down: The battle of Somalia.

If you give the answer: their last battle, you are wrong although everybody knows that it is the correct answer.

What our education is teaching us is to take in information, put it in our memory just like a computer does and then when the exam day arrives, you pour out everything that you memorized without even having to think.

WRAPPING UP…

Don’t misinterpret me.

I am not hating on school education.

School education is just awesome.

I am just saying, there are those things that school is supposed to teach you but it doesn’t.

Think about those and think about ways you can teach yourself.

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I would also like to hear your thoughts about school. Comment down below.

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Who is Mathenge Maina?

Coffee addict. I like to create through words. When I am not writing i am most likely seen carrying some chemical engineering books or trying to figure out what the next big idea will be. I am just trying to change the world one word at a time. Read about me here.